


Please Silence Your Cell Phones

by MickyRC



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Domestic nonsense, Humor, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, PDA (Public Dramatic Arguing), POV Outsider, no popcorn was harmed in the making of this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:33:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22948621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MickyRC/pseuds/MickyRC
Summary: Conrad really, really just wants to get away from people for a few hours and watch some dumb movies.The weird couple arguing a few rows ahead have other ideas.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 38
Kudos: 474
Collections: Celestial Harmonies Issue 1, Ixnael’s Recommendations, Ixnael’s SFW corner, Our Own Side





	Please Silence Your Cell Phones

**Author's Note:**

> Helloooooo everybody! This is the fic I wrote for the first issue of Celestial Harmonies zine, which you can read FOR FREE [right here!](https://celestialharmonies.webnode.com/) I had a blast with this, and I hope you enjoy the silliness too!

Nearly empty movie theaters are one of the weirder kinds of liminal space. They’ve got the timelessness of a windowless grocery store, blended with the isolation of a Walmart parking lot at three am, with the barest touch of sitting in an airport for a two hour layover turned six hour delay.

Luckily, weird and a little ways off this plane of existence was exactly where Conrad wanted to be. The past three weeks had been, to put it simply, Too Goddamn Much, and he was more than happy to turn everything off for a few hours and just stare at mindlessly entertaining movies.

Whatever he was watching, it certainly ticked that box. It was his third movie of the day, and he’d had to rush in to avoid being spotted by the employee who’d scanned his first ticket, the only one he’d actually bought. And although he’d managed to sneak in without being questioned, he’d quite missed the title above the door. It was some kid’s movie. Though he was pretty sure the kid’s movies of his childhood hadn’t been so heavy handed with the pop music. Whatever. It was bright and cheerful and plotless, and that was perfectly fine with Conrad. Anything, as long as he didn’t have to think or interact with anyone.

Not that there was much danger of that here. There were only three other people in the theater, a mom with a toddler who was more interested in the safety lights on the steps, and a middle aged guy wearing a leather jacket who seemed to be doing the same thing Conrad was. Actually, he probably had it worse, if the sunglasses on in a dark theater was anything to go by. This movie was on it’s last leg, afterall. Conrad had been seeing ads with the bird looking things on the screen for months. Which meant a quiet, empty theater, and the perfect place for Conrad to bury himself in popcorn and horrifyingly catchy music.

He had just started to really get into the budding romance between the purple, soprano voiced bird and the green tenor one when a sudden blast of electric guitars made him fumble his cup and spill soda all over his lap.

“Awwww, _fuck_ ,” he muttered, more upset at the loss of the soda than his soaked jeans. He’d been hoping to stretch that drink through at least one more movie. The cup was certainly big enough.

Well, there was still enough left to get him through  _ this _ movie. Maybe his pants would be dry by then, too. He felt gross about sitting around in wet jeans for another hour, but the thought of trying to clean it up with paper towels in the bathroom was worse. And leaving when he’d only seen two and a half movies was just unthinkable.

He looked back up at the screen, expecting to see some new punk-rock bully birds there to tear the lovebirds apart before the power of pop music would pull them together again, but found that they were still belting out Shawn Mendez. The electric guitar hadn’t even been noticed, loud and insistent as it was.

It took the man a few rows ahead shifting in his seat and reaching into a pocket for Conrad to realize it was a ringtone. For the first time, he regretted his choice to sit all the way at the back of the theater. If he had been ahead of the redhead, he could have shot a withering look his way.

As it was, though, all he could do was watch as the man’s face lit up in blue from the too bright screen, and glare uselessly as he just let it keep ringing in his hand.

“What the hell, mate?” It was one thing for your cell phone to go off accidentally. It was another to  _ not stop it_. 

Finally, after a solid minute of staring at the phone, the man tapped the screen and brought it to his ear. The theater dropped into sudden quiet, the singing birds caught up in some solemn moment, but Conrad couldn’t bring his focus back to the movie with the man hissing into his phone so dramatically.

“I'm completely fine, angel. What on  _ earth _ made you think I’m not?” Technically speaking, he wasn’t actually being that loud, but the anger in his tone cut right through the empty room. “I am absolutely grand. Hunky-dory. One hundred percent  _ tickety-boo_.” And with that sarcastic jab, the man hung up, and slumped back into the seat. 

Conrad rolled his eyes, but shifted into a more comfortable position himself. Or, he tried to; comfortable was hard to manage in damp jeans sitting in a small puddle of spilled soda. Actually, yeah, that was just disgusting. He moved over a seat. The perks of an empty theater.

Twenty minutes later, the love birds were talking about each other forlornly to their best friend birds, the toddler had made eight and a half trips up and down the stairs, and Conrad was feeling pleasantly braindead again. It was hard to be stressed about work or irritated with his new roommate when all of his attention was on those poor birds getting back together. He gasped in delight when the green one stood determinedly, ready to go find his lady bird, and opened his beak to start singing—”No Scrubs?” That didn’t seem right. “Just sits on his broke ass” did not seem like the kind of language they were putting in kid’s movies these days.

Jaw dropping, Conrad watched as the man up ahead pulled out his phone  _ again_, and watched it ring _again._ Who the fuck does that? Who doesn’t put their phone on silent after it goes off in the middle of the movie the first time?

And he just  _ kept letting it ring_. 

“Oi,” Conrad hissed down, making the man jerk around to find him in the dark. “Could ya turn that off? ‘M tryna watch, here.”

For a moment, the man sneered, and every brave nerve that had let Conrad speak up in the first place packed its bags and fled. But just as he was retreating back into the safety of his seat, the snarl dropped . “I  _ could_,” Sunglasses said, looking down at his phone in wonder. “I _ could _ turn it off.” And, with a flourish, he did just that.

“Thanks,” Conrad squeaked out.

He regretted it almost instantly when the man looked up at him again. That smile was downright  _ creepy_. “No, thank _ you_.” And to Conrad’s immense relief, he sat back down and returned to watching the movie. 

Just his fucking luck, right? Picked the one theater with the scary guy who changed his ringtone and never thought to turn off the phone. Conrad made a mental note to make sure the man left before him when the movie ended. He didn’t really want that guy walking behind him. His teeth had looked almost sharp.

As if it hadn’t been weird enough, though, within ten minutes another distraction entered the theater. In the dark, Conrad didn’t notice the new figure until he was standing in the middle of the front aisle, right smack in front of the screen. “You’re fucking with me,” he started to complain. Wet jeans, scary guy with loud ringtones, and now large blond man blocking the bottom of the screen. He shifted upright in a vain attempt to see over him, but it was only a moment before the new man spotted the first one and made a beeline for him.

Conrad nearly dropped his popcorn bucket flinging himself back into his seat. The guy in the leather and sunglasses had been creepy, but this one was straight up  _ terrifying_. Even in the dim light from the screen, he looked absolutely murderous as he climbed the steps. He smiled at the toddler and nodded to her mother as he went past, but lord above did Conrad want to do everything in his power to avoid ever being the recipient of the glare he was directing at Mr. Creepy. 

He had given up on the movie by the time Terrifying sat down primly in the seat next to the first guy. Inexplicably, Creepy didn’t even look over, didn’t react at all to Terrifying joining him except to shift his popcorn to the far side of his lap.

“Dear,” Terrifying began, his voice perfectly calm, but sharp as anything. Conrad shivered and sank further into his seat. Creepy, on the other hand, had the balls to  _ shush _ him. Terrifying sputtered. “Don’t—don’t you  _ hush _ at me! I’m trying to—”

“Shh! Movie’s on.”

“Dearest, don’t be—”

“Rude? Don’t be  _ rude_, angel? What, like talking during a movie?” 

Terrifying huffed. “Well then. If you’re going to be like that.” Conrad sighed in relief as the man stood up and headed back towards the steps, then choked on thin air as he turned  _ up _ them and sat back down  _ directly in front of him_. 

There was no chance in Hell of following the movie now. Not with such intense irritation coming off Terrifying as thick as smoke.

He had worked himself up so much that he had to bite down on a shriek when early 2000s boy band music started blasting out of nowhere. The man sitting right in front of him grumbled apologetically and took out an ancient flip phone, silencing it before the opening of “Bye Bye Bye” was even over. Okay, so maybe he wasn’t quite as bad as Creepy, at least in some respects. He tapped at the phone for another minute before gasping in offended shock and sitting up to call down over the seatbacks.

“That was  _ entirely _ unnecessary,” he hissed.

The man below twisted in his seat to look back. “Shh!”

“How on  _ Earth  _ am I supposed to change my ringtone back?”

“Shh!”

“ _You_ shh! You’re the one who got us into this!”

With that, the redhead began to look truly offended. “I’m the— _I’m_ the one who got us into this?!?” He had by now fully turned around on the seat to better yell at Mr. Terrifying. “You stood me up!”

The blond scoffed. “I did not  _ stand you up_.” 

“You stood me up at dinner last night!”

“Darling, I told you, I  _ forgot!_” 

“Okay, fine, you  _ forgot _ about dinner last night!”

“Oh for  _ Heaven’s sake, _ dear, would you—”

“Oh my god, am I the  _ only one  _ aware that we are in a  _ movie theater here?_” Conrad shouted. The bird on screen was crying. The purple one was crying, and he had no idea why, and his pants were damp, and there was a popcorn kernel stuck behind his tongue, and was it really _ that hard _ to get away from people for an hour? “You are literally screaming at each other in the middle of a movie theater, while there’s a movie on. And it’s the  _ sad _ part, what the actual hell are you thinking?”

He thought he heard Terrifying mutter “actual Hell, likely,” under his breath, but ignored it in favor of going lightheaded and collapsing back into his seat.

“It’s a  _ movie theater_,” he whined to himself. “I’m tryna watch a goddamned _ movie _ .”

Mr. Terrifying cracked a smile and leaned over the seatback towards him. “Oh, it’s not quite that bad, my dear. Though the music is a bit… well. Much, I suppose.”

“It is, isn’t it?”

“Mm. Lots of bass.”

“Yeah. Um,” Conrad peered around him. “I think your guy’s leaving without you.”

Terrifying turned just in time to see Creepy go around the corner out of the theater. “Blasted snake,” he muttered, and moved to follow him. “I’m terribly sorry about this whole mess,” he called back. “I believe you may find something about your day has gone better than expected.” And with that vaguely threatening line, Terrifying chased Creepy out of the theater.

“What,” Conrad said aloud, unable to keep this madness in his head. “The actual fuck.”

Apparently whatever thing was supposed to go better for him was not this, because the toddler was, of course, right at the top of the stairs, and the look he got from her mother made it very hard not to curl down and hide behind his popcorn bucket.

Well, so much for avoiding interaction. That cause was lost in a haystack by now, and if Conrad knew anything, it was when to cut his losses. Anyway, he had no idea what was going on in the movie anymore. Something involving a big white bird murdering an Ed Sheeran song, but the drama going on with Misters Terrifying and Creepy had blown the thing between Purple Bird and Green Bird out of the water. So he gathered up his popcorn and his cup and his jacket, and stepped in the puddle of soda on the floor, and narrowly missed tripping over the toddler on the steps, and was so blinded by the bright light of the hallway that he ran into the door trying to close it.

Holy fuck, all he wanted was to go home and finish his cinema snacks in peace.

That was, of course, too much to ask. Despite having a solid headstart on him, Sunglasses and Waistcoat were only halfway down the hall, still shooting glares at each other and occasionally kicking up the argument at a barely contained volume.

Conrad’s control slipped, and let out a weak whimpering sound. Behind the men, thoroughly blocking the door to the parking lot, was a group of kids chatting and laughing like there wasn’t a tangible wall of marital tension two feet ahead. Clueless. Oh, to be young and innocent again.

Waistcoat hissed something at Sunglasses, who was seething behind the dark glass. Without a word, he reached into the cardboard bucket under his arm, and, a look of utter unremorse on his face, flung a large handful of popcorn at his husband.

Conrad stopped breathing.

So did Waistcoat, for a moment. His face dropped into sheer shock. Sunglasses sneered harder. Waistcoat’s face hardened. Then he pulled his arm back, and, somehow, chucked the scattered popcorn back in Sunglasses’ face.

If Conrad was the praying type, he would have been on his knees with his hands clasped.

As it was, he was probably safer where he was in the doorway, as the men began pelting each other with popcorn with inhuman ferocity, Sunglasses making a mess and Waistcoat throwing it back at him. The kids by the door were staring now, and idly he watched the tall girl whisper something to the one in denim, and the boy with slightly greasy hair smack her hand away from their own bucket of popcorn.

Just when it seemed they could go on forever like this, Waistcoat aimed a particularly direct throw, and they both froze as Sunglasses’ sunglasses were knocked off kilter. Conrad didn’t even have a chance to see his eyes before the glasses were fixed, but it was clear that a line had been crossed.

“Dear…” Waistcoat began, but before he could get anywhere Dear thrust the whole bucket at him and stalked toward the door.

“I’m going home, angel!” He slammed through the door, which the kids had wisely scattered away from. Angel followed, shouting apologies that still sounded more angry than remorseful.

Conrad stayed where he was. He was going to wait, long enough that they would be gone by the time he left. Then he was going to go home, hope none of his flatmates were hogging the TV, and finish his goddamn popcorn  _ alone_. 

But he was beginning to think Angel was a bit of a liar. Because so far, everything about his day was going worse than he could ever have guessed.

In other words,  _ they were still on the fucking curb when he finally went out_. 

“Crowley, dear, talk to me!”

“Well, I was  _ going _ to talk to you last night, but guess who didn’t show up to dinner?!?”

“I’ve said I’m sorry!”

Conrad squeaked and pressed himself back against the door. It was tucked into an alcove on the outside of the building, so he wasn’t right out in the open, but they were standing right at the front of it, blocking his way  _ again_. Feeling desperate, he tugged on the door handle. Predictably, it was locked on that side. 

No longer hampered by the close walls of the hallway, the arguing couple had gotten louder and even more animated. Angel looked close to actually stomping his foot, and Dear flung his arms out to the side so hard Conrad ducked.

“Who does that?” he said in a near shout. “Who blows off dinner at the Ritz?”

“Dearest, please—”

“D’you know how long I was sitting there for? D’you know how many other people couldn’t get reservations? But no, no harm done, I suppose, it’s alright, you just  _ forgot _ .”

“OH MY GOODNESS,  _ yes_, I forgot _ one dinner _ in  _six thousand years_.” Angel was genuinely yelling now. Conrad was once again thankful not to be on his bad side. “And you have made me regret it with every fibre of my being, I shall never neglect to write an engagement in my diary again, now can we _ please _ get on with things and go back to normal?”

Dear shoved his hands in his pockets. He muttered something bitterly at the ground.

“What was that, darl—”

“You didn’t used to even need a diary!” he shouted.

Angel threw his hands in the air. “Almighty take me now!”

“Used to be the one reminding  _ me _ about… ‘bout concerts, and plays, and dinner, and nevermind that I never needed you to. Like I could  _ ever _ have forgotten a date!”

“That was before! Things were different then, every chance I got to see you was a special occasion.”

“Oh, so it’s not  _ special _ now?”

“No! Of course it isn’t!”

Dear looked like he’d been slapped by that. After staring for a moment, he turned away, eyes locked on the ground and shoulders hunching up protectively.

Angel must have realized his mistake right away, because he ran a frustrated hand through his hair and exhaled loudly. “Oh, damn my…” He sighed again, and then he softened, face going gentle and apologetic. “I’m sorry. I don’t think that sounded nearly the way I meant it.” They both stood there for a long moment, until Conrad started to wonder whether he’d be better off scaling the wall than waiting for them to move. Finally Angel reached out. “Come here, darling.” Dear kicked at the ground, but didn’t move any closer, and Angel’s shoulders slumped. “My love, every moment I have with you is a gift. It’s always been that way.” He took a step towards him, and Dear didn’t move away. “But nowadays I get to be with you all the time. It’s  _ normal_, now.” 

Dear’s voice was ragged at the edges. “And it’s not good enough anymore.”

“No!” Angel sounded shocked and horrified. “No, oh, my dearest, of  _ course _ not. That’s not what I mean at all.” Conrad flinched when Angel touched Dear’s shoulder, ready for him to lash out or start running, but instead he just leaned into the contact. “It used to be that I  _ had _ to get the most out of every moment with you. We got so few, I had to make them last.” His hand skated up to the sharp cheekbone. “I forgot last night’s dinner because I didn’t have to worry about it. Because we can go to dinner any night we want. We can go tonight, and the next night, and every damn night from here to eternity. It’s  _ normal _ to be with you now.” He lifted his other hand to Dear’s other cheek, and the redhead finally looked up at him. “That’s all I  _ ever _ wanted, love.  _ This_.” 

Conrad looked deliberately at the floor, sure Angel’s dramatically romantic exaggerations meant there was about to be a kiss. So he was surprised, and terribly concerned, when what he heard sounded more like a quiet choke. Looking up, he found Dear had buried his head in Angel’s neck, his shoulders tense like he was struggling to stop them from shaking. Angel was holding him close, stroking a hand through his hair, and making gentle, reassuring sounds. Conrad blushed and hurriedly looked down again. Somehow, that was much more intimate than a kiss would have been.

“I’m sorry,” Dear said after a minute. His voice was tight with restrained tears.

“ _I’m_ sorry.” Angel sounded a little rough, too.

Suddenly Dear giggled wetly. “You’ve—angel, you’ve got popcorn in your hair.”

Angel huffed, and the errant piece of popcorn bounced towards Conrad’s feet. “I wonder whose fault that is.”

“‘S a mystery. D’you, ah... you wanna go home?”

“Do you?”

“Weeeeell,” Dear drawled. “You know, I didn’t get to see the end of the movie.”

Conrad heard what sounded like a finger snap. “Well, I  _ believe _ there’s another showing in twenty minutes.”

“ _Is_ there? Who woulda thought.”

“Indeed.”

There were a few shuffling steps, and Conrad cautiously looked up. They were still there, but now they were standing next to each other, and Dear had an arm held out for Angel to take. “So. Whaddyou say to a movie date, angel?”

Angel looped his arm through Dear’s, smiling so bright he could only be in love. “I think that sounds just lovely, dear.” And finally,  _ finally_, they walked away, back towards the box office entrance. 

Conrad stayed put for another ten minutes. He’d been burned too many times that day to risk running into them again.

It wasn’t till a week later when he was doing laundry that he realized there was no soda stain on the jeans he’d worn to the movies. Despite sitting with it for more than an hour, and forgetting to do anything about it when he got home, they weren’t sticky or gross at all.

Apparently, angels do keep their promises after all.

**Author's Note:**

> If you wanna yell with me, I'm also on tumblr [over here!](https://one-with-the-floor.tumblr.com/)


End file.
